Podcast #77: Solving Problems by Building a Software Solution, with Janine Sickmeyer

July 19th, 2016

“Spending a lot of time with those competing tools, knowing what the pain points are, is a great first step.” —Janine Sickmeyer

For this week’s podcast, Sam talks with Janine Sickmeyer, CEO and founder of NextChapter, about how she went from being frustrated with her practice management software to building her own.

Of Course Sam and Aaron Talk about Pokemon GO

Aaron felt obliged to mention Pokemon GO precisely because it is currently the most talked-about thing on the planet. The game is an augmented reality game where the real world is supplemented by gameplay.

You can’t play Pokemon GO at home. You have to get up and walk around and interact with your neighborhood. Places of interest near you—churches, murals, landmarks—are PokeStops and Gyms. You get more PokeBalls (critical for catching Pokemon) from PokeStops and you fight your Pokemon at the Gyms.

Sam pointed out that it isn’t the first augmented reality game—that distinction belongs to a game called Ingress—but the overlay of cute furry Pokemon creatures has made this one a success. By the time you listen to this podcast, the Pokemon GO app is expected to have more users than Twitter.

Lots of lawyers have been speculating about the potential legal implications of Pokemon GO, but neither Sam nor Aaron have figured out how to relate it to solosmall practice yet. Most of the legal issues right now are things that come up in non-Pokemon situations already: people are trespassing to catch Pokemon, people are causing traffic accidents by stopping in the middle of the street to catch Pokemon, etc.

Solving Problems by Building a Software Solution, with Janine Sickmeyer

Janine Sickmeyer is an entrepreneur in the legal tech space. She is Founder and CEO of NextChapter, a web application for attorneys to prepare, manage, and file their bankruptcy cases online.